Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: A lacklustre genre mash-up

Press Association

If the casual mention of the undead in the title of Burr Steers’ horror comedy almost seems like an afterthought, the jarring on-screen presence of the flesh-hungry predators confirms it.

Adapted from Seth Grahame-Smith’s parody novel, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies puts a gruesome twist on Jane Austen’s period drama, transplanting the heaving bosoms and unspoken desire to a bodice-ripping 19th-century Britain where young women are skilled in swordplay as well as needlecraft.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains,” primly declares the film’s spunky heroine, Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James), in her opening voiceover.

The two narrative strands - repressed desire and gore - are awkward bedfellows.

The film fizzes when Steers and his attractive cast play Austen’s vacillations of the heart straight, buoyed by simmering screen chemistry between James and Sam Riley as a suitably brooding Darcy.

However, every time reanimated corpses shuffle into view and sink their gnashers into one of the supporting cast, the ensuing bloodbath is a bore.